“How long have you been a parishioner at Christ the King,” a young woman asked. “Since around 1983-84.” As I watched her eyes widened, I realized, “You weren’t even born then, were you?”

Lately I’ve been feeling uninspired.  I’ve noticed this sense of listlessness particularly in prayer.  In religious books, I have run across the term “a dry period” to connote a desert-like time in one’s prayer life.  Is that what I am experiencing?  The word that comes to my mind is not dryness but emptiness.  The feeling within me seems more like the lonely void of interstellar space.

    At times I don’t feel all that loving, even toward people I love very much.  This waxing and waning in my affection bothers me.  What is the source of my fickleness?

Did you know there are at least 350,000 species of beetles?  That is just one example of the incredible variety of life on this planet alone.  Nature seems to love diversity; human nature does not always seem to love diversity.  

The Beatitudes confuse me—and that’s a problem since they are central to Jesus’ teaching.  But just take the first three, why is it blessed to be poor in spirit, to mourn, to be meek?   I tend to think I would rather be rich in spirit, happy, and at least somewhat assertive.

Jesus’ critics are concerned with his sitting at table with Roman collaborators and others they labeled as sinners.  These “Pharisees and scribes” believe it was important to maintain a distinction between righteous and sinful behavior.  Jesus appeared to be ignoring those categories.

Although not a doctor, Grandmother had very definite medical ideas.  She knew “regularity” was the best indicator of good health.  When she saw her grandson fall out of a tree, she ran to him and, noticing his arm bent at an odd angle, immediately asked, “When was your last bowel movement?”

  While convalescing recently, I sought consolation in Netflix, specifically the Fr. Brown series.  Fr. Brown is a perceptive, gentle priest with a penchant for solving mysteries—which is a very good thing since apparently someone in his parish either gets murdered or disappears on a weekly basis. 

Have you read Late Migrations by Margaret Renkle?  If not, I recommend it.  The delicacy of her descriptions of trees, birds and family members touches deeply into my heart, stirring up my own memories of loves and losses. 

At the risk of misinterpreting the Creed that we profess every Sunday, I want to express thoughts that have been whizzing around in my mind.  Were you not taught, as I was, that Jesus was human and divine?  That in the person of Jesus, divinity “was made flesh and dwelt among us”?  Bishops at the council of Chalcedon (451) cautioned Christians not to think of these natures as separate, rather as uniquely one, in the person Jesus.         So far, so good—but here is the part I am pondering:  is Jesus a paradox who offers us a key to help us understand ourselves?  Are we too a mixture of human elements and elements we name divine?  Personally, I am well aware of my humanness.  My five senses are fallible guides for knowing tangible reality; even less helpful in comprehending intangible or supernatural reality.  I am aware that my human perceptions and understandings are limited.           Yet I intuit a Self beyond my self guiding me toward a greater sense of Reality.  There is a divine indwelling that allows me to “see,” to “know,” in a different way.  Our tradition upholds we are “made in the image and likeness of God,” we are “the Body of Christ,” we are “temples of the Holy Spirit.”  there is more to me than only my human nature; I am intimately connected to divinity.         If Jesus’ divinity/humanity is not an anomaly, if we humans are a mixture (albeit a very imperfect one) of humanness and godliness; then the Word of God is still being made flesh by people in our own day and time.  Then in Jesus Christ we do have a key to understanding ourselves as both human and capable of bringing the presence of God into our world.  Then incarnation is ongoing.

At the risk of being burned at the stake, I want to express thoughts that have been whizzing around in my mind.  Were you not taught, as I was, that Jesus was human and divine?  That in the person of Jesus, divinity “was made flesh and dwelt among us”?  Bishops at the Council of Chalcedon (451) cautioned Christians not to think of these natures as separate, rather as, uniquely one, in the person Jesus.         So far, so good—but here is the part I am pondering:  is Jesus a paradox who offers us a key to help us understand ourselves?  Are we too a mixture of human elements and elements we name divine?  Personally, I am well aware of my humanness.  My five senses are fallible guides for knowing tangible reality; even less helpful in comprehending intangible or supernatural reality.  I am aware that my human perceptions and understandings are limited.         Yet I intuit a Self beyond my self guiding me toward a greater sense of Reality.  There is a divine indwelling that allows me to “see,” to “know,” in a different way.  Our tradition upholds we are “made in the image and likeness of God,” we are “the Body of Christ,” we are “temples of the Holy Spirit.”  There is more to me than only my human nature; I am intimately connected to divinity.         If Jesus’ divinity/humanity is not an anomaly, if we humans are a mixture (albeit a very imperfect one) of humanness and godliness; then the word of God is still being made flesh by people in our own day and time.  Then in Jesus Christ we do have a key to understanding ourselves as both human and capable of bringing the presence of God into our world.  Then incarnation is ongoing.

When Jesus told the story about the first two travelers on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho, his audience must have settled back in anticipation of the happy ending.  Surely the third traveler would be a lay person like themselves who would tend to the wounds of the victim.  Had this been the ending, Jesus’ audience would have walked away content, confirmed in their sense of themselves as good people.  But that is not the story Jesus told.  The third traveler was a Samaritan—a religious apostate, a national enemy, a dangerous outsider.  If Jesus were telling the parable to us, I wonder if the three people on the road wouldn’t be a bishop, a priest, and a jihadist.        On one level, the parable of the Good Samaritan is about helping a neighbor.  But it is critical to remember that Jesus told this story when he was asked, “Who is my neighbor?”  Jesus’ answer includes the person sitting next to you in Church or the person living in the house next door—and it also includes the person kneeling on a prayer mat in a mosque in Iran.  According to Jesus, our neighbors are not just the people we like and trust.  No, the term neighbor covers even those people we do not see eye-to-eye with, people we cannot like or trust.  Our neighbor is anyone we encounter in life who is in need.        This parable brings to my mind some advice I was told was given to the students who had volunteered to sit in at various Nashville lunch counters in the 1960s.  They knew beforehand that they would be beaten and taunted with slurs.  One of the students asked if they were supposed to love the people who would be calling them all kinds of names, putting out cigarettes on their backs.  The response was, “You do not have to like those people, no one can expect that from you.  You just have to love them.”       

Mark, who scholars tell us wrote the first Gospel, depicts Jesus rebuking his disciples for their inability to let go of old ways of thinking.  “Do you not yet understand or comprehend?  Are your hearts hardened?” (8:17)  To make his point, Jesus compared people’s minds to old wineskins.  “No one pours new wine into old wineskins.  Otherwise the wine will burst the skins...Rather new wine is poured into fresh wineskins.”  (2:21-22)  The message seems to be that we need to abandon old categories, old worldviews, in order to see with new eyes in the kingdom of God.           Scholars also suggest that Matthew, aware of Mark’s Gospel, wrote in part to nuance it.  Matthew’s community wanted to preserve much of their Jewish heritage and way of life.  They did not feel they needed to discard completely their old mindsets, for Jesus did not come “to abolish but to fulfill the Law.”  (5:17)  As Matthew put it, everyone “who has been entrusted in the kingdom of heaven is like the head of a household who brings forth from the storeroom both the new and the old.”  (18:52)           This apparent contradiction could serve today’s church well.  We need both Markan visionaries who call us to let go of old ways of thinking, as the Spirit is doing something new in our time.  We also need Matthean conservators who want to recast what is at the heart of older understandings and traditions so that they can function in our time.  What is not offered in either Gospel is the option of clinging to old understandings or traditions for their own sake — or for the sake of our comfort.  We are called to move on, to boldly go where the Spirit leads. 

  Chuck had a question about my writing of Bulletin blurbs, “How do you remember this stuff?”  His directness led me to consider my experience over the past few years.         I first started writing these blurbs when Joceline Lemaire asked for short pieces to fill extra space in the Bulletin.  I found myself waking up some mornings with an entire reflection in mind—all I needed to do was grab a pen and some paper.  After a while, those “revelations” stopped.  I still wanted to write — so, before going to sleep, I would try to recall a memory or a piece of Scripture.  I hoped this practice would act as a prompt.  If I felt any inspiration the next day, it generally took writing a few drafts before I felt I had a piece worth sending in.  That strategy worked for a while.  Recently that tactic was failing to prove fruitful.  I wondered if my days as a blurb writer were coming to an end.  The thought saddened me; it also filled me with gratitude for the opportunity I had been given.         Then Chuck asked his question—and I began writing this blurb.  The inspiration did not come in my sleep or through any effort of dredging up old memories; it came out of an ordinary encounter in my everyday life.  Grace was now showing up, unbidden, in broad daylight.         And isn’t that the way grace works sometime?  We find ourselves attracted to a certain activity or person—and there is an initial spurt of inspiration, marked by the telltale sign of joy.  The flow of grace appears to slow down and we have to invest time and energy to maintain the practice or keep up the relationship with that person.  The third movement of grace opens us to the surprising awareness of God’s presence all around—in the ordinary, the everyday—as the love of God shows through in unexpected ways and places.

When I was young, the dramatic aspects of Gospel stories captured my imagination.  I envisioned a gloriously shining angel with an incredible wingspan appearing out of nowhere to a very young Mary; star-gazing magi in exotic clothing dismounting dusty camels after entering the gates of Jerusalem; an enormous boulder rolling sideways to reveal a recently crucified Jesus standing upright.  These miraculous events spoke of supernatural powers, of God doing extraordinary things.         I am older now and find I am drawn to the less dramatic, more homespun stories in the Gospels.  For example, Jesus’ parables resonate with me now because they are rooted in experiences I have encountered in my own life or in the lives of people I know.  They are stories of a parent’s love for a wayward child and for a self-righteous child, or a person’s care for a needy neighbor, of a manager who wants to pay all workers a living wage.  The stories of Jesus’ less miraculous actions also feel closer to life as I live it.  His willingness to touch a leper offers me a more plausible guide in life than his ability to walk on water.         Our tradition wisely suggests the divine is present in both the extraordinary and the very ordinary events of our lives.  For me, at this point in time, sensing and seeking to follow grace in the small, tender details of being a loving parent, a caring neighbor, a person willing to pay others a living wage seems more do-able.  Perhaps that is how I am called to incarnate the Spirit poured out on all of us.

What bothers me about the saying “Expectations are pre-meditated resentments” is my understanding that expectations are inevitable.  For example, I expected my husband to behave toward me much as my father had toward my mother, to behave toward our children much as my father had toward me.  My sense of “how a husband/father acts” was based on what I had seen growing up.  As it turned out, my husband did not always act according to the model my father set.  Sometimes the differences did not bother me at all; but occasionally, when my expectations were not met, I was taken aback.  If having expectations is integral to being human and it is likely my expectations will not always be met, am I doomed to disappointment, resentment?          No.  Once again the Bible and current day life experiences offer us a metaphor to help us deal with the messiness of human life.  Much of Scripture draws on the notion that we need to come to see people in a new Light.  Expectations are rather like cataracts that darken our vision, blind us to the person standing in front of us by suggesting he or she should be like someone we have encountered in the past.  But cataracts can be removed—and once removed, I am able to see more clearly.  The key is to see the expectation for what it is rather than to look through the expectation and allow it to distort my vision.       According to the song, it takes amazing grace to move from blindness to seeing others for who they are rather than who I expected them to be.  I ask for that amazing grace, for apparently the alternative is a life darkened by disappointment and possibly poisoned by resentment.

   Memories can be faulty - especially mine. Yet I vividly recall reading a story about two friends—one a Caucasian, the other a Native American. The Native American child ends up giving his friend a feather that means a great deal to him. He tells his friend that his tribe believes to truly have something, you must be willing to give it away.           I didn’t hear that message again for many years, until I started attending a Twelve Step meeting where the saying goes, “To have it, you have to give it away.” The “it” is recovery, the giving away entails sharing your experience, strength and hope with other people who have been affected by the family disease of addiction. To maintain my own recovery, I have to be willing to share my life, my story, with others.            Our religious tradition has a similar notion, simplified down to a single word—kenosis. We speak of Jesus emptying himself so that he could live a fully human life. We speak of following his example in our own lives. As best as I can make sense of kenosis in my life, it is about emptying myself of ego-driven programs to prove myself right, to earn love or respect, to control my life or the lives of others. Kenosis has something to do with surrendering my will and my life, with letting go of how I think my life or other people’s lives should be. Instead, by emptying out my ego, I can be filled with God’s Holy Spirit and thus able to accept - even love - myself, others, creation as is.             All I can say is, it would be easier to give away a feather (or its equivalent in our tribe). It would even be easier to sponsor someone in Al-Anon! Kenosis seems to me to be a life-long process - and one that can only happen with amazing grace. 

By way of defending her fondness for a pop singer, a woman said, “She is all about self love!” A man countered, “Isn’t that narcissistic?” I felt prompted  to consider: what is self love? To reflect on that question from a Christian perspective, I find it helpful to distinguish between the false self and True Self. As I understand it, a false self grows out of the values, attitudes, defense mechanisms, etc., that a person forms within a family, culture and religious tradition. So my false self began developing when I was a child being raised Catholic in a suburb outside Chicago. True Self is a deeper, more mysterious reality. According to our tradition, True Self is in the image and likeness of God dwelling within us.         I am going to presume true self care would be care of the True Self. For me, the movement toward that kind of care began when I looked internally rather than externally for validation and guidance. The journey inward entails coming to know self - gifts and limitations. To use Biblical language, I had been blinded by my false self, but my eyes could be opened, I could awaken to divine indwelling - a Self more profound than my small, false self.       Awakening is generally followed by a prompting to get out of bed! That is the journey outward. Again in Christian terms, the source and foundation of True Self is God’s Spirit or Love which moves beyond itself. Aware of both my goodness and my weaknesses, I heard a wake up call, a prompting to respond to the signs and situations of my times.       For me, Self care involves breathing in meditation and prayer to discern what is “right and just,” and breathing out loving kindness. I do that breathing, inward and outward, together with all of you.  Thank you for journeying with me.  

     Recently I visited an elementary class in a Portuguese Catholic school.  The children began their day with a practice called “the good morning” (o bom dia in Portuguese).  After signing themselves with the cross, the students took turns reading aloud from a short passage in John’s Gospel.  There was a brief reflection on why the image of a good shepherd was an apt metaphor for Jesus.  The children then said a Hail Mary and an Our Father.         I thought the memorized prayers ended “the good morning,” but I was wrong.  The children pulled out notebooks in which they had, the evening before, responded to three questions:  For what are you thankful?  What would you like to ask of God?  What are your fears?  Two answers struck me.  One boy asked God to help the homeless in his town, to give them a place to stay and “luck.”  Another child said he was afraid because his grandmother was sick.         This movement from prayerful reflection on Scripture to consideration of the lives of others and concerns in their own lives touched me.  Perhaps this daily practice could lead not only to um bom dia but also to uma boa vida (a good life).

No one was home. I could sneak into my brother’s room undetected and search through his messy arrangements of books to find the two I wanted—Big Red and Irish Red! Once I had them in hand, I headed to the bookshelf in my bedroom where there was a gaping hole. Carefully I placed both paperbacks in the tidy line-up of books, arranged alphabetically by author. Once again, they were MINE. (At least for a few days or a week—until my brother performed a similar covert operation and “stoled” the books back!)  His claim to these Jim Kjelgaard books was that he had read them first. My claim was that he had “given” them to me to read—and (the ethical argument) that I tended to take better care of books than he did!         I associate this adolescent “war” with Paul’s notion of “living in the flesh.” Both my brother and I wanted to have, to own, to control, those paperbacks. Paul argues that such a materialistic way of life leads to conflict, that there is a better way to pursue happiness. He called this other way “living in the spirit.” Had my brother or I been living in the spirit, we would have been grateful for the experience of reading Big Red and Irish Red—but we would not have clung to the corporal books themselves so tightly. Living in the spirit is characterized by appreciation and sharing, not covetousness and possession.         My brother won the war for the Jim Kjelgaard books. When he moved out of our parents’ home, he took the paperbacks with him.  They were on a bookshelf—I am sure a messy one—when a fire broke out and destroyed them.  To the best of my knowledge, those two paperbacks had never been enjoyed by anyone besides my brother and myself before they were incinerated.